Blue Bell Blues

While pushing a grocery buggy with a squeaky, lop-sided wheel through the store, a happy dance suddenly rises from the marrow of my bones. Blue Bell’s on sale!

Feeling tears of joy well up in my eyes, I stand hopelessly in front of the double glass doors completely mesmerized by the gold and brown rim half gallons of ice cream. Salivating like Pavlov’s dog, I narrow in on Southern Blackberry Cobbler, but just before I reach for it, I see Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough out of my peripheral vision, and there’s Moo-Llennium Crunch above that!

Those made me second guess myself, and fight, and I mean fight, to walk away from it all like a good boy should. But like a fly caught in a spider’s web, both feet stick to the floor as people pass me on both sides of the aisle.

I know from the commercial that Blue Bell employees eat all they can and sell the rest, so I feel quite fortunate there’s any left. And besides, the profile of the little girl leading Elsie the cow down the trail is just so dog gone cute! And on top of that, it’s made in Texas and you’re supposed to support the local economy, so I figure it’s just the right thing to do to buy some. In fact, it would be downright unpatriotic, maybe even a sin, not to.

I kept staring at the choices while a very large lady riding a powered scooter drove up the aisle. There must’ve been a run on ice cream because some flavors were in short supply and before I could make my final decision, the large lady drove right up beside me and snatched the last carton of Southern Blackberry Cobbler from the bottom shelf! How rude!!

She rode off in her cart, and quite frankly, I considered chasing after her. I quickly devised a plan to feign an accident by bumping the front of her basket with my buggy, and then in the diversion, lift the ice cream from her basket to mine. After all, she probably didn’t need that ice cream for her health’s sake anyway, and I would really be doing her a favor, right?

But I immediately felt guilty because two teenage girls wearing WWJD bracelets reached in right after that for the last carton of Carmel Turtle Fudge. And their bracelets got me thinking: “What Would Jesus Do?”

Well, and this is just my humble opinion, but I think Jesus would buy fat-free yogurt, maybe, possibly, probably. And if that wasn’t available, I think Jesus would just say, “Get thee behind me Elsie” and go get some grapes, or maybe frozen blueberries.

I’m pretty sure Jesus wouldn’t get Captain Crunch cereal from the next aisle over either though. I don’t know why, but it seems like He would get something with more fiber and no high fructose corn syrup.

I turn back to the Blue Bell display again and rationalize that I must be wrong about what Jesus would do because the two teenage girls wearing WWJD bracelets got Blue Bell ice cream, and a good flavor too! Certainly their cumulative brain power would’ve thought that through.

I finally settle on homemade vanilla and gently set the ice cream in my cart on top the apples, carrots and broccoli. Besides, with Blue Bell around, I wouldn’t need those for a while. It crossed my mind to buy two cartons, but I dismissed it after reading the fat grams on the label.

The very first thing I did when I got home was scoop out a bowl…OK, two bowls. After the first bowl, I was full. After the second bowl, I was a bloated, glutton, helium balloon kinda full. I wonder if this is what Elsie the cow must feel like right before she gets milked?

You know, no other ice cream is any temptation at all. In fact, I don’t even like ice cream, except Blue Bell, which is more addicting than heroine. Maybe I should join a 12 step program for Blue Bell? I don’t know.

I turn on the game on TV, but even so, all I can hear is the clanging of a little blue cow bell inside the freezer, and a rather loud argument going on in my mind:

I want more ice cream. You shouldn’t’ve bought it to start with! But it was good. You’re a loser for having two bowls! It won’t matter. You have to get up and exercise now! It’s supporting the local economy. It’s supporting the local heart doctor!

“Away from me Blue Bell! Thy homemade vanilla is but a tempest to my soul.” William Shakespeare, I think, or Mark Twain, Winston Churchill…someone famous had to have said that.

I finally relax, block it all from my mind and enjoy the game on TV….until a dad gum Blue Bell commercial came on….

Mmm, Blue Bell! My favorite is Cookies and Cream. I miss how they made Pecans Pralines and Cream when I was little. It’s just not the same anymore. I wish they made a peanut butter chocolate one like Baskin Robbins does. I’d stay fat forever!

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Stories about family, faith, friends and funnies. Pull up a chair. Grab a cup of coffee and laugh, cry, ponder and inspire about ordinary events of this wonderful, ever changing, bubbling pot that we call "every day life".